This isn't "only" about gender-harassment. It is about a fundamentalism that has pervaded the mindset of a sub-community within Israel that has yet to be truly attended to by the government. The national response cannot be short-lived, because this world-view is deeply rooted and will not be answered within one media-cycle.-Rabbi Menachem CreditorDec. 30, 2011

The month of December brought some bad news for Jewish day school advocates. According to the Avi Chai Foundation, which tracks these things, day school enrollment saw a "modest decline" of about 1.4% in the 2011-12 school year, compared with the year before.

The sharpest decline was reported among the Solomon Schechter schools of Conservative Judaism, which experienced a 3.8% drop, from 11,786 students nationwide in 2010 to 11,338 this year. They were followed by so-called Community (non-denominational and/or federation-sponsored) schools, which fell 2.5%, and Modern Orthodox schools, which fell 1.6%. Centrist Orthodox schools, which are similar to Modern Orthodox but segregate classes by gender, actually gained 1.7%.

The numbers offer several useful insights. Perhaps the most useful, though hardly the insight the authors intended, is how easily numbers can mislead. Comparing this year with last, we find a slight drop in day school enrollment, presumably due to the economy. When we dig a little deeper, though, we'll find a significant decline in non-Orthodox enrollment, while overall enrollment soars due to an ongoing Orthodox baby boom.

Looking deeper still, we find some eye-popping details. Most dramatic: the calamitous drop in Schechter school enrollment. In 1998, the year Avi Chai first took attendance, Schechter enrollment totaled 17,563 students in 63 schools nationwide. This year, as noted, enrollment is just 11,338 students in 43 schools. That's a 35% decline.

The main reason, several Schechter officials told me, is an exodus of families and whole schools to a network of non-denominational community schools with fewer religious rules. Community-school enrollment rose from 14,849 in 75 schools in 1998 to 19,417 in 91 schools this year. A smaller number may have left for Hebrew charter schools in New York and South Florida.

We'll also find an explosive growth in ultra-Orthodox or Haredi school enrollment, including both Hasidic and non-Hasidic (that is, misnaged or "yeshivish" black hat) schools, reflecting high birthrates. Modern Orthodox schools, by contrast, are essentially holding their own.

Avi Chai compiles its numbers by a census — literally contacting every day school in America and asking for numbers, grade by grade. It's probably the most accurate source of American Jewish demographic information, though limited in range. However, the full census is only conducted every five years. The last one was in 2008.

The figures released this past December are based on a partial census that's conducted annually between full headcounts. The partial tally includes only the five most modern school groupings: the four mentioned above (two Modern Orthodox, two non-Orthodox) plus the much smaller Reform day schools (total enrollment 4,300). Among those not included are the two Haredi groupings, Hasidic and Yeshivish, which account for more than half of all America's Jewish day school students.

Dec 28, 2011

The test of a religion is its ability to speak its truth without denying another's. This is a matter of civil rights which are the very foundation of the Catholic Church's place in our democracy. The decision to jettison Catholic Charities' adoption services rather than comply with US nondiscrimination laws is a statement of principle. But I find the decision repugnant.

By Allison Kaplan Sommer

Israel has a new and unlikely national heroine. She is a small blond bespectacled Orthodox 8-year-old girl, the daughter of American immigrants who live in Beit Shemesh. Her name is Na'ama Margolese and she was featured in a news broadcast on Israel's Channel 2 about the ongoing Haredi harassment of the girls who attend the Orot Banot School, and about the problem of extreme Haredi control in Beit Shemesh in general.

Naama spoke on camera of her fears while walking the short distance from her home to her school, after numerous occasions when she was cursed at and even once spit on by the Haredi demonstrators. Israeli viewers watched as her mother, Hadassah, holding her hand, tried to convince her to make the short walk as she cried, whined and protested; it's a ritual they go through every school day.

To the residents of Beit Shemesh (and to readers of The Sisterhood) the story of Beit Shemesh and the intimidation of Orot Banot girls is nothing new.

But just as the experiences of one individual young woman who refused to sit in the back of buses, student Tanya Rosenblit, last week galvanized mainstream Israeli public opinion regarding gender segregation on public transportation, the televising of Na'ama's plight woke up the Israeli public. Until now, that public had remained relatively indifferent to the trials the Orot Banot girls and the residents of Beit Shemesh were undergoing. Members of an extremist Haredi group that have settled there over the past several years have been pushing for the creation of gender-segregated bus lines, designating parts of the city where women and men were directed to separate on public streets, and harassing the girls of Orot Banot on the ground that they did not dress modestly enough.

Immediately after the piece was aired on Channel 2, Facebook groups were organized and demonstrations in Beit Shemesh planned by angry citizens who wanted to take action. The power of the press had truly flexed its muscles. (The extremists were clearly aware of the damage done to them by the television coverage, as they demonstrated when they attacked the reporter when he returned to Beit Shemesh on Sunday for a follow-up story.)

Unsurprisingly, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, who clearly sensed where the political winds were blowing, went on a public relations push over the weekend to show he was taking action. Ynet reported that he "asked Internal Security Minister Yitzhak Aharonovitch on Saturday to instruct the police to act firmly against violent attacks targeting women in the public sphere." In the aftermath of the Channel 2 story and the reaction, the ultra-Orthodox mayor of Beit Shemesh ordered workers took down street signs that directed women to cross the street and "not linger" in front of a synagogue. As they did so, Haredim threw rocks and called the municipal workers 'Nazis.'

The fact that the government took action only after the media paid attention to Beit Shemesh is infuriating. The girls of Orot Banot have been under siege since school opened in September, as detailed here and here. They deserved firm action and government protection long ago: Na'ama should never have had to be terrified in the first place.

But the Orot Banot parents will take what they can get. One of them wrote on Facebook that the Channel 2 piece their "Hannukah miracle" and Na'ama's mother said in a television interview that the numerous expressions of support that their family received following the broadcast felt like "a massive hug from the entire country." They are joining together with their new supporters on Facebook for a massive Hannukah candlelighting, rally, and march on Tuesday night designed to drive the forces of darkness out of Beit Shemesh, and bring the city closer to the meaning of its name: The House of the Sun.

Dec 25, 2011

This video makes me cry. Please watch it. It is 15 minutes long, and must be seen and considered. We are losing Israel from within. It's not an anti-Charedi mindset that makes this upsetting. It's my love of my People, my love of my Homeland that makes me hurt watching this.

Dec 24, 2011

"Praying and chanting with Women of the Wall continues to teach me about the ways that women can come together to advance not only our standing but also our understanding of Judaism." - Liz Piper-Goldberg

Join us to celebrate Rosh Hodesh Tevet at the Kotel on Tuesday, December 27, 2011 at 7 AM! Please bring your own siddur.

If you would like to lead a part of the service or hold our Sefer Torah, please contact us.

Dec 22, 2011

The value of Gilad Shalit's privacy is so important. He isn't a symbol - he is a person, a young man who will now lead the next chapter of his life. But "pirsumei denisa/publicizing the miracle" is also a value during Channukah. Chag Sameach, everyone - may all our lights shine a bit brighter this year.

The problem with my teacher Hanan's eloquent article (pasted below) is that he sees advocates for Jewish gay inclusion as arguing for autonomy. This is a misrepresentation of halachic progressive advocacy, which argues for the organism of Halacha to continue evolving in response to a growing understanding of ethics and science, including human biology. Framing the conversation as post-modernism is not helpful. This continuation of the modern critique of Judaism has been the hallmark of Conservative/Masorti Judaism since its birth in the 19th century.

Postmodernism in masorti education

Traditionalists say proponents of homosexual ordination have not made their case based on a rigorous examination of legal precedent.

The Schechter Rabbinical Seminary, which prepares Masorti-Conservative rabbis in Israel, sits at the intersection of at least four overlapping tensions, between disparate roles of higher Jewish education, rival notions of religious pluralism, competing understandings of human sexuality and different approaches to textual reasoning. The departure of three senior administrators from the school in as many years, reported byThe Jerusalem Post on Friday, December 9, is partly related to these tensions.

To address them, the Board of Trustees has appointed a committee to review and make recommendations concerning a number of policies and practices, including those relating to structure, admissions, education, religious standards and relations to its various constituencies. It is the sense of the board that the committee should also address how the question of admitting and ordaining homosexuals should be discussed in the future, in order to chart a way forward for a more productive dialogue on this issue.

As a condition of its accreditation, The Schechter Institute of Jewish Studies was asked to become a non-denominational graduate school, without affiliation to Masorti-Conservative Judaism. Schechter's other three divisions, originally part of one institution, were also divided into independent NGOs. The Tali Education Fund emerged as a freestanding network of pluralistic Jewish education programs within Israel's nonreligious state school system. Midreshet Yerushalim was transformed into an independent institution of continuing education and outreach. Only the Schechter Rabbinical Seminary remains formally tied to Masorti-Conservative Judaism, although the other three organizations continue to promote a pluralistic approach to Jewish learning.

This division has enabled the Schechter Institute to attract hundreds of religious and secular students to its highly regarded MA programs and the Tali Education Fund to reach tens of thousands of youngsters in Israeli public schools. But it has also left some issues that need to be addressed among between the four Schechter NGO's and the Masorti-Conservative movement, both in Israel and abroad. One important task of the board committee will be to facilitate a discussion of these issues.

Another tension stems from the fact that Masorti-Conservative Judaism has typically followed a view of pluralism which holds that religious texts have several legitimate interpretations. Communities, institutions and individuals may choose between equally valid readings of these texts, which can lead to conflicts. In 2006, Masorti-Conservative authorities approved two opposing positions concerning the ordination of homosexuals, for example.

The Schechter Rabbinical Seminary in Jerusalem and the Seminario Rabbinico Latinamericano in Buenos Aires both followed the more traditional ruling which rejects such a move, in contrast to its more liberal sister institutions in the US which have embraced it.

Traditionalists hold that proponents of homosexual ordination have not made their case based on a rigorous examination of legal precedent. Liberals, on the other hand, read rabbinic sources as maintaining that the pursuit of a sexual orientation is a human right, provided that it meets other standards of Jewish sexual ethics. This follows an alternative approach to pluralism which holds that individuals have the right to choose their own life paths. Denying this right is seen by advocates of this approach as morally odious since it undermines personal autonomy.

This conflict is exacerbated by a third tension between modern and postmodern accounts of human sexuality. Traditionalists ground their position in modern sensibilities such as scientific historical scholarship, whereas some more progressive liberals appear to believe that contemporary attitudes about human sexuality have been irrevocably altered by the so-called "postmodern condition."

POSTMODERNISM IS concerned to expose the ways that people exert power over one another. The traditional preference for heterosexual over homosexual relations, for example, has enabled those who favor the former to dominate people who are inclined toward the latter. But our attitudes toward these preferences are socially constructed, according to postmodern theory, even though the preferences themselves may be influenced by a variety of biological factors.

Following this analysis, we should permit several sexual orientations provided they are grounded in love, commitment, mutuality and respect. Postmodernists view this as a revolution in human sentiment no less momentous than the discovery of romantic love or the rise of feminism, to which Jewish law needs to adapt. Yet one might ask whether Jewish tradition should resist or embrace such postmodern insights.

Finally, traditionalists often ground their arguments in legal positivism, which holds that legal decisions should be based on the critical reading of texts alone, independent of moral judgments not found in the law itself. Without rejecting critical exegesis, which seeks to discover the intended meaning of a text in its original context, both moderate and progressive liberals appear to place equal weight on midrashic eisegesis, which looks for innovative readings of a text apart from original intent that are in tune with current moral sensitivities.

The blurring of accepted dichotomies, such as exegesis (reading out) and eisegesis (reading in), is also characteristic of postmodern criticism. This process, which some postmodernists call "deconstruction," is the subject of considerable controversy among intellectuals. One paradox of this approach, for example, is that the concern for overcoming dominant discourses by means of new interpretations can also become a means of domination.

The willingness of the Board of Trustees to facilitate a serious examination of these perplexing dilemmas presents an extraordinary educational opportunity for the Schechter Rabbinical Seminary to demonstrate the value of dialogue on matters of principle in an atmosphere of mutual respect that engages Jewish sources in a careful and critical manner. This is the hallmark of Masorti-Conservative Judaism. As a leading institution of rabbinic education in Israel,we have a sacred obligation to do no less.

The writer is Chair of the Board of Trustees of the Schechter Rabbinical Seminary, Professor of Philosophy of Education at the University of Haifa, and Sr. Research Fellow of the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute.

Dec 18, 2011

Folk meets Jewish mysticism in this expression of soulful longing, a collection of original interpretations of sacred texts, poetry, and wordless niggunim.

Silence and Air

(c) Rabbi Menachem Creditor

We sat there, transfixed by the unfolding scene, the wreaths everywhere made it almost-obscene. For any tradition would hope that its faithful would see from within that the point is not spatial.

It's not that we Jews feel erased by the clutter, (though this time of year makes us feel quite 'the other'). It's rather that somehow amidst all the noise, a wrongness was touching each girl and each boy, a message that no-one of faith should support, for it turns something pure into something of sport.

When symbols of faith are repackaged with glitter, a person with soulful experience jitters. What's more, when we Jews see the lights and the sales, the need to 'keep up' sends strange wind through our sails. Our windows become cluttered and swell (since garlands of blue and white work just as well).

But then something is lost, though we each comprehend, that it's natural - and fun! - to fit in with our friends. So the problem is shared and pervasive these days and the wisdom we need seems much further away.

The truth of tradition needs silence and air, and the noise all around makes it seem nothing's there.

And so Teshuvah, Return, is a lesson worth learning, by the glow of Menorahs and Yule Logs, separately burning. Return to your heart. Return to your self. Let seasonal sales gather dust on the shelf.